Salam all,
All right folks, here's the deal with AP scores versus the grades on your transcript. They don't consider both. They only consider
one or the other, though how they decide I'm not sure. I can only assume they take the better one, and by better I mean whichever one earns you the highest marks (as described below).
I can't say that I have any sort of document to verify that data, but having used the table on this site (
This is Inter Board Committee of Chairman) provided by the IBCC (under heading C.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Equivalence of Internal Examination System/ Institutional Grades of American System[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
), here's what I've concluded -- and again, it's not final, but I would encourage those who have received their equivalence marks to try this out and see how well it works:
Consider the marks for one score out of 100
a score of 5 on an AP test in one of the required subjects will get you 85 marks.
a score of 4 on an AP test in one of the required subjects will get you 75 marks.
a score of 3 on an AP test in one of the required subjects will get you 65 marks.
...And so on, by subtracting 10 each time.
on the other hand, considering you DON'T take the APs and your marks are to come from the letter grade(s) on your transcript, the marks break down as follows (these I know for sure, you can see the official table on the link above)
[/FONT]A+ = 76.5
A = 72
A- = 67.5
B+ = 63
B = 58.5
B- = 52.2
C+ = 49.5
C = 45
C- = 40.5
Now for individual grades, I'm not sure how they deal with the fact that you take it two semesters. It could be that they average the marks you obtain for both semesters. I have no method of checking.
The point I'm trying to make though is this: AP scores
CAN raise your IBCC score significantly but
ONLY if you do well. You can't go wrong with a 5, but when it comes to a 4, if you can get an A+ in a class for two semesters, you'll get that extra 1.5 marks.
Now, the reason I think this is true is based on the marks I attained. Here's how I calculated it.
I got a 5 on four subjects (Bio/Chem/Physics/Another subject) and a 4 in English.
So, according to that IBCC chart, I figured
85 * 4 = 340
75 * 1 = 75
75 + 340 = 415
Now, since there were five subjects considered, and each individual subject is out of 100 marks, the total possible marks that can be obtained is 500. So I took 415 and divided it by 500 ( 415/500 ) to get 0.83, or 83%. I multiplied the 0.83 by 1100, since the IBCC score on the equivalence certificate is out of 1100, and that comes out to 913. My official marks were 912.
I know I was off by one, but that's a pretty small margin of error in my opinion.
The reason AP scores are given higher marks in general is because they're considered as a form of External Examination, while letter grades are considered a form of Internal Examination.
If you DO turn in your AP score report,
MAKE SURE that it is the original score report they send home to you, and that the envelope is
SEALED like it is when it arrives in your mailbox. If you've already opened your score report, call up the College Board using the number in the Student Pack that they send home with you when you take your final AP test. Tell the representative to mail you another copy of the score report. When it arrives, submit it as is with the rest of your IBCC documents
without opening it. I don't know what the deal was in the past, but these days they are very picky about having AP scores sealed because apparently some people try to change their numbers and make it seem like they got higher scores than they actually did.
